Without tech industry guidance, U.S. may resort to weakening encryption

Apple may have refused to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter, but the tech industry is still better off working with the U.S. government on encryption issues than turning away, according to a former official with the Obama administration.

“The government can get very creative,” said Daniel Rosenthal, who served as the counterterrorism director in the White House until January this year. He fears that the U.S. government will choose to “go it alone” and take extreme approaches to circumventing encryption, especially if another terrorist attack occurs.

“The solutions they come up with are going to be less privacy protective,” he said during a talk at the Versus 16 cybersecurity conference. “People will think they are horrifying, and I don’t want us to see us get to that place.”

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